War has indeed become perpetual and peace no longer even a fleeting wish nor a distant memory. We have become habituated to the rumblings of war and the steady drum beat of propaganda about war’s necessity and the noble motives that inspire it. We will close hospitals. We will close schools. We will close libraries and museums. We will sell off our parklands and water supply. People will sleep on the streets and go hungry. The war machine will go on.

Phil Murphy, the leading Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, has made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his campaign. He says the New Jersey bank would “take money out of Wall Street and put it to work for New Jersey – creating jobs and growing the economy [by] using state deposits to finance local investments … and … support billions of dollars of critical investments in infrastructure, small businesses, and student loans – saving our residents money and returning all profits to the taxpayers.”

The Detroit bankruptcy is looking suspiciously like the bail-in template originated by the G20’s Financial Stability Board in 2011, which exploded on the scene in Cyprus in 2013 and is now becoming the model globally. In Cyprus, the depositors were “bailed in” (stripped of a major portion of their deposits) to re-capitalize the banks. In Detroit, it is the municipal workers who are being bailed in, stripped of a major portion of their pensions to save the banks.

Corporate profits are good, right? Low taxes on corporations are also good, right? With high profits and low taxes, corporations have large amounts of money to “invest” in new businesses and jobs, meaning everyone else benefits. Continue reading →

From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (“No End In Sight”), comes INSIDE JOB, the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia. Narrated by Academy Award® winner Matt Damon, INSIDE JOB was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.

Our problems stem from acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” — Dorothy Day

Once upon a time, many years ago, when things weren’t quite so f’ed up here in Duh-merica, the Democratic candidate for president from Nowhereville, Arkansas made the expression, “It’s the economy, stupid,” a catch-phrase for his successful bid to unseat the incumbent, George H.W. Bush. Pappy Bush had been wildly popular (we love our “successful wars” here) after his attack on Iraq but had not addressed the recession we were suffering under at the time.

I’m writing in response to the George Soros lectures recently given at the CEU and made available at the Financial Times web site.

I have a degree in economics and an MBA in Finance, both from highly regarded schools. It’s been 40 years since I got my Wharton MBA and it’s taken me almost that long to figure out that my degree was designed more to help me make money for people, (many of whom extract more from society than they contribute to it), than it was to help me understand the dysfunctional institutions they own or manage.

I think Soros made some excellent observations during his lectures and his ambitious attempt to formulate a new economic theory is noteworthy. My view is that his observations are not only insightful, as they obviously contributed to his success in business, but I think his theory, once expanded, will be helpful in preventing another debacle like the one we’re going through now. In any event, he’s right that something needs to change, as most of the economists we hear from in the main stream media operate inside a box that would best be dismantled. I think he made that point as well.

The Big Six investment banks, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, are “shorting the American Dream,” according to economist Simon Johnson and entrepreneur James Kwak in an interview on April 16, “Financial Regulation and Regulatory Capture” on Bill Moyers Journal. Here’s a summary of the big and important ideas and issues on the table.

First, Simon Johnson is a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, now teaching at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. James Kwak is a former management consultant at McKinsley & company, co-founder of the successful software company, Guidewire, and presently studying law at Yale Law School. Together Johnson and Kwak run the economic website BaselineScenario.com. To boot, they have written a new best seller, 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.

Operation: #OneMoreVote

The FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, letting internet providers like Verizon and Comcast impose new fees, throttle bandwidth, and censor online content. But we can stop them by using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). We need one more vote to win in the Senate, and we’re launching an Internet-wide push to get it.

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The Golden Rule

“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.” - Rabbi Hillel

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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